Cash dries up for Labour in union attack on plans for privatisation

Published on Tuesday 16 June 2009 22:45

LABOUR is to lose targeted funding from Unison in 64 key constituencies after the union warned the government it could not expect a "blank cheque".

Unison general secretary David Prentis warned that members would no longer be "feeding the hand that bites them", and that the union's 1 million election donation could also be at stake.

Six Labour branches in Scotland will have Unison donations suspended: Dunfermline and West Fife; East Lothian; Falkirk; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey; Kilmarnock and Loudoun; and Midlothian.

At Unison's conference in Brighton yesterday, Mr Prentis attacked Labour's policy of privatisation in the health service, which he described as more radical than the ideas pursued during Margaret Thatcher's tenure.

He also pointed to a survey showing 70 per cent of public-sector workers were not voting Labour at the next election.

His criticism came as Prime Minister Gordon Brown addressed the GMB union's conference, urging members and supporters to fight "like never before" to save public services.

"If we don't wake up to the problems faced by a Conservative government cutting public spending by 10 per cent, many services will be going, or gone," he said.

SNP MSP Christina McKelvie, a former Unison shop steward, said Labour had lost touch with public-sector workers: "This is not simply about Gordon Brown's style of government but the very policies the London Labour government have enacted and their proposed cuts in public spending."

A Labour Party spokesman said: "The Labour Party and Unison share a commitment to the values of public services and social justice, and as friends we can and should be frank with one another."